Chelsea confirmed the signing of Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling in one of the blockbuster transfers of the summer on Wednesday.
The forward joins the Blues on a lucrative five-year contract, with the option for an extra year, and is becoming one of the highest-paid players in the Premier League. The £50m switch represents Chelsea ’s first signing of the summer transfer window and the first of the Todd Boehly era after the American completed his protracted takeover of the club.
It was a move few would have predicted heading into the summer, especially considering the huge role the England international has played at the Etihad in recent years. However, noise from his representatives suggested the 27-year-old was reluctant to extend his contract in Manchester which had just one year remaining.
Cashing in while they still could was a wise move for City. And for Chelsea, landing a player of Sterling’s calibre for the fee paid still represents a very good deal.
Strengthening the attack was always going to be a priority for Chelsea in this window, especially following the departure of Romelu Lukaku who, despite signing less than a year ago for £97.5m, was allowed to leave and return back to Inter, highlighting just how disappointing his second spell at the club was.
Direct replacements have been linked, the most notable of which have been Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowksi, although viable options beyond them have been limited. This is a big reason why Thomas Tuchel would have switched his attention to landing Sterling - a player who, on paper at least, can improve the team’s output even from wide positions.
Creating chances was rarely the issue for Tuchel’s side last season; only Manchester City and Liverpool attempted more shots, yet worryingly only three sides missed more ‘big chances’. Sterling bagged a combined 23 league goals across the last two campaigns, no Chelsea attacker could better that return, with Mount’s 17 the closest.
Despite that impressive return, and a combined total of 109 all-time goals in the Premier League, there’s often been an accusation made at Sterling that he isn’t actually a ruthless and accurate finisher. And this criticism does actually warrant some merit.
Utilising Understat, we can access eight seasons' worth of goalscoring data. During that period, Sterling has netted 98 league goals, 95 of which were not penalties. Interestingly though, his combined non-penalty Expected Goal (xG) total for that same period was 101.08.
xG is a metric that utilises historical shot data to measure the quality of goalscoring chances and the likelihood of them being scored. The same is often used to get an indication of how a team or player is performing in front of goal.
A player’s finishing capabilities are rarely consistent, even the very best forwards go through hot and cold spells. However, a larger playing sample does tend to quieten the noise in the numbers and paint a more accurate picture of a player's capabilities.
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In the case of Sterling, what the above indicates is that the forward has underperformed during that time, scoring fewer goals than would have been expected based on the quality of chances he’s had. In fact although not by huge amounts, Sterling has actually underperformed in each of his last four Premier League campaigns.
For comparison, Understat holds a similar amount of data on Liverpool's Mohamed Salah, and according to them, he's scored 135 non-penalty goals from a non-penalty xG of 124.09. That means he's overperformed by a total of nearly 11 goals.
There is of course a lot more to Sterling’s game than just having an ability to covert goalscoring chances. He’s an elite presser in the attacking third and ranks 16th across the whole division in terms of shot-creating actions made per 90. He also ranks amongst the league’s elite in areas such as dribbles attempted and touches made inside the penalty area.
However, the above highlights that purely from a goalscoring perspective, he’s not the elite finisher many at Chelsea will be hoping he can be. His impressive scoring record has undoubtedly been aided by playing for City, the most creative side across the top flight.
It’s possible he receives fewer chances on average with Chelsea, and based on his finishing capabilities, this could have a direct impact on his goal return.
